Wednesday, January 09, 2008

Rooster Cap

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Went out to the jail today to kinda babysit this guy. We need to keep him "settled down" so he can testifyat trial against some folks that need to go to prison for a long, long time. He's ascared because they are going to really try hard to keep him from doing just that.

He's in a bit of a hard spot.

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I'm talking to him, this and that, kind of propping him up and soothing him and I can see the anguish in his face and hear the fear and doubt in his voice and I am just a thousand, thousand miles away.

It isn't anything I can really do for him.

*

Who knows how it will all shake out?

Not me.

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I went back out to where I used to work. Some of the same guys are still there, a lot of them. Some new faces. Same old bad, bad energy. I sat at my old desk and shot the shit with the guys for an hour.

I felt like the one that got away. Made something of himself. Lit out for the big old world and shook the dust of that place off my shoes.

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Sometimes you get to see the world you left behind, like it was an alternate life for you had you not done what you did to get out, and that is a blessing. In this case it was.

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Spent last night in the ER with my kid again. Another fun filled IV bag of antibiotics, steroids, pain meds. We're old hands there now. I know where they keep the warm blankets and the ice water and the extra chairs and who is mostly cool and who is mostly hard-edged and who to steer clear of and who to be grateful for.

Thank god it's only a small thing and nothing serious. My god, though. When it's my turn in ernest seriousness to die in a long, protracted way I don't know. I don't know how much time I could do in there.